Cap'n Red Hat and the Black Dirt Chronicles of Effort

Mike Schmidt, 1989 Topps Cap'n Crunch

What's left to say about Mike Schmidt? He played for the team with the red hats. He enjoyed/was sponsored by Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal. These are the two most common things people know about Mike Schmidt. "Is there anything else I should know?" you ask. Great question. Not really.

Unless ... do you like the Internet? Because guess what? Mike Schmidt has a website.

Here is the header/tagline/whatever you call that thing that appears on the very top of the browser of Mike Schmidt's website:

The best of the Sports Stores is Mike Schmidt Fan Shop; compare to the other Sports Stores, Sports Stores, Sports Stores and see.

There is no doubt we are required to do some comparison here. But before we do that -- and we won't do that -- the homepage features a very important quote by Mike Schmidt which, judging from the picture, he first uttered while hitting a home run over the Liberty Bell and winning America her freedom from France or whatever.

"If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black." -- Mike Schmidt

This is a very long quote that I had originally and mistakenly attributed to Winston Churchill. I think we've all wished, at one point or another in our lives, that effort could be manifested through dirt on our bodies. Effort, however, is typically only manifested by results, and unfortunately for Schmidt, he has only his 500 home runs and Hall of Fame career to serve as an indication that he did, many times, practice baseball. I also was not aware that brown dirt on top of more brown dirt will become black dirt. I thought it would just mean more dirt.

The point is that: hey you -- dive for that ground ball! Don't stand there and let it go by you because you don't want your uniform to get dirty like so, so, so, so, so, so many other baseball players. When you do that it looks like you're not trying. Do you even like baseball? Oh ... you don't? Then why are we even out here? I'm sorry; this is my dream, not yours. Let's go to the movies.

(If you are skeptical as to Mike Schmidt's belief in dirt, scroll over the Mike Schmidt logo on the website and experience the puff of dirt that magically appears. Don't worry though -- you won't get dirty.)

The other point is that: hey you -- buy some sports apparel and memorabilia at Mike Schmidt's online store! Don't just be all browsin' around without getting your uniform dirty (metaphor for consumer purchase).

It's uncertain what role, exactly, Cap'n Crunch played in the creation of mikeschmidt.com. It's possible that this card and Mike Schmidt's website are mutually exclusive. But who knows? The long arms of Cap'n Crunch spread wide across corporate America.